During RaceFail 2009, numerous fans have been working very hard to, first, point out that the Fail is unacceptable, and, second, to return to the conversations that the Fail is an attempt to derail: racism in science fiction and fantasy fictional works and in science fiction and fantasy fandoms.

This community is meant to be a place that rounds up the anti-derailing efforts in a central location for the benefit of those who want to continue the conversations about cultural appropriation, racial diversity and multiculturalism in SFF fiction and fandom, racism in ditto, and its intersectionality with other oppressions. It is not meant to displace existing conversations or efforts, but to be a resource that supports them and enables additional discussion and action.

To that end, I hope to post links to some of the fighting the derail that I've seen, and to flesh out a proposal to send fans of color to Wiscon. That won't come until tonight, because I've got a day job to get to—so in the meantime, please feel free to post your own links!

Policies:

This is a community to fight the derailing of anti-racism conversations, and thus, any attempts to keep derailing are unwelcome. If they happen:

In comments: my preference is, and always has been, not to delete comments but to freeze or screen them as appropriate. If I screen comments, I will generally repost the contents under ROT13 so that people can, if they choose, see what prompted the action. I believe that I can't stop people from deleting their own comments or comments to their own posts, but I would ask you to consider taking these other actions instead.

In entries: I believe that as a maintainer, my only options are to delete offensive posts; I don't have the power to put them behind a cut, lock them, etc. If it becomes necessary to delete a post, I will first comment to the entry explaining to the poster why I am doing so, screencap the whole thing, and then make a post behind a cut-tag explaining what I've done and why, with links to the screencaps.

Right now, commenting and posting are open to all. I hope that no moderation is necessary, but I feel it important to set out my feelings on the matter openly and from the start.

Questions?

This is a hasty, gotta-go-to-work draft. What am I forgetting, what should I add, what would you like to see this community be?

I just want to applaud this effort and express my hope that my ass will not show in any ill-thought-out comment.

I love SFF and sometimes even enjoy fandom. I would also like to see a more inclusive, safe SFF community. I feel like, all too often, when we try to talk about race and systemic institutionalized racism, people experience discomfort - which they might mistake for pain and/or being offended, then they get defensive, and the conversation part of the conversation fails...

I know similar resources exist elsewhere, but I'd like to see a dynamic post where people share 101 resources about derailing and privilege (things like ABW's Things You Need to Understand series, the "how to use your white privilege to make racism disappear" piece that stewardess did, other things) so that people participating in wider discussions have a centralized source to pull from in order to derail the derailers. I don't know if that sentence made any sense at all, but it did in my head.

Would you object if I posted this to the JournalFen community unfunnybusiness (it's an offshoot of fandom_wank, where issues too important or significant to be "just wank" end up; they've been reporting on RaceFail 2009 in some detail)?

It might be a way to spread the word, get more people and perspectives involved. (On the other hand, it's still a f_w offshoot; you may want to keep this free of that whole sphere.)

Someone commented in a post on my journal that it was hard to figure out what "fight the derailing of anti-racism conversations" means. I said I would bring this up to see if you/we might want to unpack what this means a little more in the description of this community. (I'm not saying you necessarily should unpack it, because I'm not sure whether you/we want this community to be about "racism 101" education.)

Here is how I unpacked it in my response to the question; if you like that, feel free to grab, modify, or whatever.